Prior to the Ukraine crisis, there were many asking what purpose NATO would serve once the alliance's troops had withdrawn from Afghanistan. But now that Putin has taken over the Crimea -- leading countries on the alliance's eastern edge to feel threatened -- the mood in NATO's Brussels headquarters has changed dramatically. General Secretary Rasmussen, one NATO source said, has "positively blossomed." And the US, Britain and most Eastern European member states support him.

Der Spiegel Germany portrays Germany as very unkeen to stand up against Russia over the Crimea and western Ukraine (which it sure looks like Vlad is going to grab too).

So Vlad is good for defense spending. The Poles and Baltic nations aren't going to cut their defense budgets when they are afraid of the Russian bear. I think the Eastern Europeans will place good relations with Washington DC ahead of good relations with Berlin or Moscow.

NATO is a fraud. The only trained, equipped armies it has in Europe are the British and French, and they are small and a thousand miles from Eastern Europe. As shown in the Bosnian conflict and in the Libyan conflict, Euro-NATO lacks the logistical capacity to move large armies (British and French only or mainly) to the East and to sustain combat operations there. Moreover, again as demonstrated by the Libyan conflict, Euro-NATO lacks the war stores needed to sustain high intensity combat operations for more than a few weeks. Finally, any military operations in the Ukraine would have to include Belarus. Otherwise NATO forces would be subject to flanking attacks from Belarus that would cutoff and surround their forces. Please review the WW II Eastern Front for details.

In order to build up sufficient forces to be able to confront Russia, Britain and France would have to at least double or triple their military expenditures, and the rest of NATO would have to increase expenditures by a factor of three to five. Total expenditures would have to be above 5% of GDP for the entire NATO membership, including the US, and the US would have to reestablish a large ground and air forces in Europe. If that is not done, any claims about NATA getting serious about Russia is a bad joke.

If NATO were to go to war with Russia today in the Ukraine, NATO would be crushed.

There is a method to Vlad's madness: Russians think in terms of 20, 40, 50, 60, and 100 year cycles with good reason. Russia has been victimized by Germany twice during the previous century, and things can change again after another generation. The Baltic countries that became NATO members, are only 200 miles away from Saint Petersburg, and Russia seems to establish a minimal strategic depth in the West, in order to prepare for the coming tension against the rising two (not just one) Eastern superpowers that have their eyes on Siberian raw materials.

Germany was complicit in encouraging the new uprisings in Ukraine by essentially bribing the Western Ukrainians with the promise that by gravitating towards EU, they can immigrate to rich European countries. The goal of Germany is not the transformation of Ukraine, but the disintegration of Russia (if Ukraine disintegrates, many Russian factions might also want to enter the EU), so that Germany can get the Russian raw materials at fire sale prices.

This is not the Russia of old. By old I mean internationalist Socialists. Russia understands that White Europe and White America is being swamped third worlders and that the West has been compromised by Socialist Ideology. Turn on your TV and take a look at the programming and take a look at the basketball worhippers and take a look at the US president, Attorney General and head of Homeland Security etc etc..
Russia just may be the last outpost of real White people!

This is not the Russia of old. By old I mean internationalist Socialists. Russia understands that White Europe and White America is being swamped third worlders and that the West has been compromised by Socialist Ideology. Turn on your TV and take a look at the programming and take a look at the basketball worhippers and take a look at the US president, Attorney General and head of Homeland Security etc etc..
Russia just may be the last outpost of real White people!